Profile

Born and raised in the UK, Dylan began his professional career at the age of 17 as a programmer at Argonaut Software (now Argonaut Games PLC). Due to a tie-up between Argonaut and Nintendo, Dylan soon found himself at Nintendo in Kyoto, working on the development of X for the GameBoy and Star Fox for the SNES.

After those projects, Dylan went to work for Sony Computer Entertainment America, later transferring to Sony Computer Entertainment Japan, developing technical demos for the nascent PlayStation 2, such as the famous “ducks in the bath” demo, and games such as Blasto and Piposaru 2001.

In September 2001 Dylan founded Q-Games in Kyoto. In the years since, Q-Games has produced a number of games for Nintendo such as DigiDrive (for the GBA), part of the bitGeneration Series, followed by Star Fox Command (DS), X-RETURNS (DSi Ware) and Star Fox 64 3D (3DS) in addition to self-published games such as the titles in the PixelJunk™Series. Q-Games also collaborated with SIEJ to develop The Tomorrow Children (PS4), a well as more recently developing PixelJunk™ Monsters 2 for PlayStation, Nintendo Switch and PC.

Since I first started playing with home computers back in 1982 in England, I’ve always been making games on anything I can get my hands on – Sinclair ZX-81, Spectrum, BBC Micro, Amiga, Gameboy, Super NES, PC, PlayStation, PlayStation 2, Nintendo DS and 3DS, and the PlayStation 3 and 4, Nintendo Switch and now new platforms such as Apple Arcade and Google Stadia.
For over 30 years, I have watched the evolution of these machines and platforms, and I continue to be surprised at the amount of innovation our industry achieves, and the one thing that remains constant for myself and Q-Games across all these generations, regardless of platform, is the dedication we all have to surpassing any limits to push visual quality and gameplay as far as it can go, using the most advanced techniques we can find, inventing it if we have to!
This dedication and desire is what defines and drives the game industry as a whole, whether it’s creating a 3D polygon engine for a Game Boy, developing a voxel cone ray tracer for the PS4, or simply designing the player controls to run around in the most pleasant way possible, being at the cutting edge and maintaining the highest standard possible is my raison d’être.

Akito Takahashi joined Q-Games in April 2006, where he’s helped develop such titles as Nintendo’s Star Fox Command (DS), Starship Defense (DSiWare), X-Scape (DSiWare), and Star Fox 64 3D (3DS). He’s also worked as a game designer on the PixelJunk series, including PixelJunk™ Monsters Deluxe and the Facebook version of PixelJunk™ Monsters, as well as the PS4 title The Tomorrow Children in collaboration with SIEJ. He’s been studio manager at Q-Games since November 2017.

My game development career started in 2006 when I joined Q-Games. What I’ll always remember is how surprised I was that my new colleagues were asking me – a complete newbie – what my thoughts were – and they actually incorporated some of my concepts into the project – I saw my ideas in-game the very next day! Everyone here really works towards making interesting and challenging games. Game development teams at Q-Games are encouraged to experiment – there is a real freedom to explore concepts and ideas. In the years since game development has evolved, but the freedom I felt when I first joined the company is still apparent. It part of the DNA of Q-Games. Working with colleagues who are also creatively driven means we get the best out of each other. Through trial and error, each iteration takes us closer to the next step in the evolution of the worlds that we are building.